By
Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency
Tel Aviv----March
17......Until today, Israel had thought that it's deadliest threat came from
Iran, Syria, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, Hizbollah and bin-Laden. But now some
innocent birds without suicide belts may have changed that equation.
The Israel
Agriculture Ministry today confirmed the first bird flu outbreak in the country,
Israel Radio reported. Citing an official source, Israel radio said that the
Agriculture Ministry had confirmed that the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of
bird flu led to the deaths of over 11,000 turkeys on two farms in southern
Israel, the first such case in the country. In addition, local newspaper
Ha'aretz reported that three people, either living or working on one of
the two farms located in the southern area of Negev, had been rushed to hospital
for treatment of suspected symptoms of bird flu infection.
Following
preliminary tests after discovering the dead turkeys Israel Health Minister
Yaakov Edri said "a very high chance that this is avian flu." "Last night we
informed the World Health Organisation that the H5N1 virus has spread to
Israel," Dr Moshe Haimovitch, a senior agriculture ministry official, said in
Tel Aviv.
The Israel
Agriculture Ministry has ordered the slaughter of thousands of birds on the two
farms and a third one near Jerusalem where bird flu was suspected, the report
added. Israel has geared up for bird flu outbreaks, ordering that all the birds
in the affected farms and nearby farms be destroyed and that a quarantine be
imposed with a radius of 10 kilometers around the farms if the deadly virus is
detected. Last month, Israel's neighboring country Egypt detected its first case
of H5N1 in chickens.
The H5N1 strain
of bird flu, which re-emerged in east Asia in December 2003, has killed over 90
people worldwide in the last few years and is spreading rapidly across the
world. Experts fear that the disease, currently jumping from birds to humans
through close contact, might mutate into a form that can easily pass among
humans, leading to a global pandemic.
The Israel Health
Ministry confirmed that Bird Flu was responsible for the recent deaths of
approximately 11,000 turkeys at the southern kibbutzim of Holit and Ein
Hashlosha. The same strain was identified at Kibbutz Nachshon near Beit Shemesh,
following an unusual amount of poultry deaths. Two people from Kibbutz Ein
Hashlosha, who worked at the chicken coops, were sent to Soroka Hospital under
suspicion that they contracted the deadly bird flu strain. One of them, a Thai
worker was held in isolation.
The Israel Health
Ministry ordered that the carcasses be buried underground. The poultry were to
be killed by consumption of poisoned water.
After its meeting
to discuss the response to a bird flu outbreak, the Agriculture Ministry
announced on Friday that they would continue the veterinary quarantine over the
southern kibbutzim of Holit and Ein Hashlosha.
Chief Israel
veterinarian of the Agriculture Ministry Dr. Shimon Pokamunski told Israel Radio
that it had not yet been decided to launch a massive vaccination campaign, but
should that decision be made, the Health Ministry would be ready to proceed
within three days.
Health officials
repeatedly reminded the public that the avian flu primarily affects birds. It
was very rare for the virus to make the transition into a human host. Even in
cases where humans do contract the disease, it is generally limited to people
who come in direct contact with fowl, usually bird handlers in chicken coops.
Unfortunately, mortality tends to be high in cases when it is contracted.
The Israel Health
Ministry voiced caution and urged the public not to panic after the Agriculture
Ministry announced on Thursday night that turkeys on two Negev farms were
"suspected" of having died from the H5N1 strain of avian flu. Health Minister
Ya'akov Edri called an emergency meeting last night to discuss the case.
Agriculture Minister Ze'ev Boim said the ministry was still testing the birds to
determine whether they had the feared flu strain. Boim stressed that Israelis
should remain calm until the tests have been completed. The suspected outbreak
was centered on the Negev desert farming community of Ein Hashlosha and the
nearby community of Holit, where a large number of turkeys were found dead, Boim
said.
"We have imposed
a quarantine in a radius of seven kilometers around the area, and we are
prepared, in case our suspicions are confirmed, to prepare for a wide-scale
destruction of the flocks in a radius of three kilometers," he said. Health
Ministry associate director-general Dr. Boaz Lev said that there was no danger
to the general public, as avian flu spreads directly among poultry and wild
birds and can spread only to people in direct contact with live birds whose
droppings contain the virus. There is no danger eating poultry, even if the food
supply is affected by the virus, as it is destroyed by the heat of cooking and
does not pass to humans who touch raw processed poultry.
The H5N1 virus
was detected in neighboring Egypt last month, and Boim said the death of the
birds in southern Israel might indicate that the disease had entered the country
from Egypt.
Bird flu expert
Robert Webster told ABC News this week that there were ''about even odds at this
time for the virus to learn how to transmit human to human," and ''society just
can't accept the idea that 50 percent of the population could die. . . . I'm
sorry if I'm making people a little frightened, but I feel it's my
role."
Webster was
criticized for his statement by the Boston Globe which stated: "As one of
the top flu experts in the world, Webster's role is to track influenza in the
test tube, not to make sweeping speculations that are not based on science and
do far more harm than good. By his estimate, we should be destroying every bird
in the world right now before we all perish in a pool of pathogens." The Globe
continued: "Webster's statement is the latest Hitchcockian pronouncement about
H5N1 bird flu, a virus that is deadly in birds. But humans are different. We are
protected by a species barrier, and serological surveys conducted in 1997 in
Hong Kong and since have detected antibodies in thousands of humans who never
got sick, showing that bird flu isn't as deadly to the few who come in contact
with it as has been reported. Imagine what would happen if a bird in the United
States gets H5N1 bird flu. At the rate we are going, the fear of birds will be
so great that our own poultry industry, number one in the world, is likely to be
in shambles. We already have this problem with mad cow disease, where a single
sick cow that is not even in the food chain makes people very nervous, despite
the fact that it is almost impossible to get mad cow disease from eating
beef."
Most scientists
won't say it that directly but most acknowledge that Webster could be right,
even though they believe the 50% figure could be too high. No one knows how long
or how many mutations changes it would take for bird flu to become a direct
threat to humans. But that hasn't stopped Dr. Anne Moscona from desperately
searching for new types of anti-virals that both prevent and slow the spread of
bird flu. She says, "I don't think that once we human-to-human transmission,
it's going to be possible to contain it." This is why nearly every viral
scientist in America, perhaps the world, is waiting, watching the avian flu
virus to see if it remains a terrible threat to birds, or changes its DNA and
becomes just as deadly to humans.
Blaming the media
for blowing out of proportion a localised event, India Agriculture Minister
Sharad Pawar said today the bird flu situation is under control and there is
nothing to panic about on a nationwide scale. "The media has blown a localised
event out of proportion without realising that such exaggeration of facts would
impact the rural economy," Pawar told reporters at the sidelines of the World
Consumer Rights Day celebration here. There is nothing to worry, he said, adding
"the situation is completely under control".
The http://www.cdc.gov/ - states: "Although
avian influenza A viruses usually do not infect humans, more than 100 confirmed
cases of human infection with avian influenza viruses have been reported since
1997. For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) maintains situation
updates and cumulative reports of human cases of avian influenza A (H5N1). Most
cases of avian influenza infection in humans are thought to have resulted from
direct contact with infected poultry or contaminated surfaces. However, there is
still a lot to learn about how different subtypes and strains of avian influenza
virus might affect humans. For example, it is not known how the distinction
between low pathogenic and highly pathogenic strains might impact the health
risk to humans. (For more information, see “Low Pathogenic versus Highly
Pathogenic Avian Influenza Viruses” on the CDC Influenza Viruses Web page.
Because of concerns about the potential for more widespread infection in the
human population, public health authorities closely monitor outbreaks of human
illness associated with avian influenza. To date, human infections with avian
influenza A viruses detected since 1997 have not resulted in sustained
human-to-human transmission. However, because influenza A viruses have the
potential to change and gain the ability to spread easily between people,
monitoring for human infection and person-to-person transmission is
important."
The CDC
continued: "The avian influenza A (H5N1) epizootic (animal outbreak) in Asia and
parts of Europe is not expected to diminish significantly in the short term. It
is likely that H5N1 infection among birds has become endemic in certain areas
and that human infections resulting from direct contact with infected poultry
will continue to occur. So far, the spread of H5N1 virus from person-to-person
has been rare and has not continued beyond one person. No evidence for genetic
reassortment between human and avian influenza A virus genes has been found;
however, the epizootic in Asia continues to pose an important public health
threat."
The results from
the tests of people in Israel admitted into hospital with bird flu symptoms will
be ready in two days, Haaretz informs. The information about how many
people have been admitted into Soroka hospital with bird flu symptoms is
controversial. Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reports about five Israel
citizens from Ein Hashlosha. At the same time Haaretz informs of four
workers, including a Thai citizen.
For now it
appears that Bird Flu may be a blessing in disguise as the terror group Hamas
led Palestinian Authority will have to work closely with Israel authorities in
combating a common enemy.
A sick dove of peace may actually contribute to
peace, cooperation and stability in the Middle-East, if the birds don't get to
us first.
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